Asked whether he had anything to say before sentencing, Arthur Topham made a statement that will ring through Canadian history about the nature of free speech and the motivations of an extremely moral and honest man.. He posted what he had as a critic of Zionism, not out of malice or hatred, but driven by a moral imperative to warn people of a perceived danger. ““I felt that I had a duty as a Canadian citizen to alert the general public of an imminent threat … the interests of the Jewish lobby,” said Topham in court March 13, according to the CBC.

Arthur Topham’s 10 year ordeal of harassment for being a strong critic of Zionism, ended in a Quesnel courtroom when he was sentenced, having been convicted in November 2015 on one count of violating Canada’s notorious “hate law” Sec. 319 of the Criminal Code, as a result of postings highly critical of Zionism and organized Jewry. Ironically, the charge revolved around books readily available from mainline online booksellers.. The Internet dissident became technically another political prisoner in Canada’s sordid attack on free speech. Amnesty International defines a political prisoner as a person punished solely for the non-violent expression of his political, religious or cultural views.

Judge Bruce Butler sentenced Mr. Topham to a six month suspended sentence during which he must reside at his home, refrain from alcohol, report to his probation officer and not post anything on the Internet. After that, he faces two years of probation. On March 10, he shut down his massive RadicalPress.com website, the contents of which, we assume will be mirrored by others in less repressive lands than Canada.

“In a sense, the thought control freaks got part of what they wanted — the silencing of this dissident,” said Paul Fromm, Director of the Canadian Association for Free Expression which had backed Mr. Topham during the first legal assault by complainant Harry Abrams,a complaint to the Canadian Human Rights Commission under the now repealed Sec. 13. CAFE continued to back him when Abrams, a B’nai Brith spokesman in Victoria, teamed up with chronic Ottawa complainer Richard Warman who complained to the British Columbia “hate squad” which led to the Sec. 319 charges.

In sentencing Mr. Topham, Judge Butler rejected Crown submissions for a stiffer sentence and 200 hours of community work. The judge also rejected allegations that Mr. Topham indirectly advocated violence. The CBC (March 13, 2017) reported: “One piece that Topham called ‘satire’ advocated the forced sterilization of all Jews. ‘He does not call for violence; his views were political satire,’Butler told the sentencing hearing. ‘It is not his intent to indirectly incite violence.’ Butler ruled that Topham deliberately used the internet to disseminate anti-Semitic information but said the man was not calling for violence.” The satire in question was Israel Must Perish, a parody Mr. Topham wrote of a hideous blueprint for genocide Germany Must Perish, written in 1941 by an American Jew named Theodore Kaufman, calling for the mass sterilization of German Jews after the war, an act which would eliminate the Germans as a people within a few decades.

No one was happy with the sentence. Free speech supporters see the gagging of Arthur Topham as one more atrocity committed under Pierre Trudeau’s fadulent Charter of minority special rights and diminished Majority freedoms.

Defence lawyer Barclay Johnson sadly observed: “The difference between Canada and the Soviet gulags is only one of degree. The communists put dissidents into a physical prison. The gag order is a psychological; prison imposed to enforce a multicultural society. The Charter is little more than a fine document to be hung on an office wall. It looks good. However, judges have repeatedly gutted promised rights like freedom of speech and invented rights not mentioned, like same sex marriage.”

The mainstream media, even in British Columbia, were strangely silent. “The Jewish lobby doesn’t like this sentence,” remarked Dr. James Sears publisher of the satirical YOUR WARD NEWS, another target of arch- complainer Richard Warman.’s “They were hoping for a harsher sentence and, then, the controlled media would have crowed about a ‘Nazi’ tongue-lashed by a judge and sent away for a long prison term.”

Their victory over the former teacher, placer miner and publisher. after a decade of attack seemed like a mouthful of bitter ashes to B’nai Brith. “B’nai Brith Canada, which had alerted the RCMP to Topham’s activities back in 2007, said it was “strongly disappointed” with the sentencing. In a statement, Michael Mostyn, CEO, described the sentence as “a mere slap on the wrist which will do little to protect Canadian Jews or preserve the multicultural mosaic of our society. Mr. Topham is a committed and unrepentant Jew-hater, who persisted in publishing lurid anti-Semitic content on his website throughout this legal process,’ Mostyn continued. ‘Canada’s laissez-fair approach to hate crimes continues to fail minority groups and puts them at increased risk of attacks against their lives or property.’ Mostyn said the timing of the lax sentence was especially disturbing ‘as Canada’s Jewish community reels from a series of bomb threats against our community centres, inspired by the same hateful ideology that drives Mr. Topham.’” (Canadian Jewish News, March 14, 2017)

More Delays in Arthur Topham ‘Hate’ Trial

An April 29 conference call among the judge, the Crown and Barclay Johnson lawyer for free speech warrior Arthur Topham again postponed the date for the constitutional challenge Mr. Topham is launching against Canada’s notorious ‘hate law” (Sec. 319 of the Criminal Code) as it applies to the Internet.

Last November, a Quesnel, British Columbia jury acquitted him of one count of “wilfully promoting hate” against a privileged group, in this case, Jews on his website radicalpress.com . He was acquitted on a second count.

Again, the Crown asked for the delay. The new date is June 6 to set a date.

Both sides will likely call a witness as the question of the constitutionality of this serious restriction on communications in the Internet age once more comes before the court.

On Friday, November 20th, 2015 RadicalPress.com publisher Arthur Topham returned for the third time to the B.C. Supreme Court in Quesnel to attend another bail hearing in the wake of the November 12th, 2015 guilty verdict in Count 1 of his two count indictment.

Crown prosecutor Jennifer Johnson was seeking what turned out to be a series of extremely harsh conditions that would have seen Topham charged with an additional criminal offence for allegedly publishing Crown disclosure documents as well as severe restrictions that would have prevented him from operating his website. In addition to those added Orwellian features Crown was also seeking unconstitutional conditions that would have prevented outside media from speculating on the reasons for the jury’s decision to find Topham guilty of Count 1. And finally, new conditions that were ostensibly meant to protect jury members from being subject to criticism or harassment.

Both Supreme Court Justice Bruce Butler and Defence Attorney Barclay Johnson appeared via telephone from Vancouver and Victoria while Topham attended in Quesnel along with Crown prosecutor Jennifer Johnson.

Crown made its presentation to Justice Butler followed by Defence counsel Johnson who countered all of Crown’s arguments with reasoned facts. When the smoke finally cleared it was apparent that Justice Butler wasn’t buying into Crown’s arguments and declined to impose any new conditions besides those already in effect with the exception of one small concession related to the safety of the jurors.

Crown, in its submission, argued that a photo of the potential jurors lined up in front of the courthouse on the snowy morning of October 26th (the first day of the trial) had been published on RadicalPress.com and it potentially posed a possible threat to the safety of the jury members (the photo, upon inspection didn’t show the faces of any of the people who were actually on the jury). Justice Butler was willing to concede to Crown’s request that it be removed and rather than have it written up in the new conditions Crown stated that if Mr. Topham would give the court his word that it would be remove then she would be happy with that. I assured Justice Butler that I would remove the photo as soon as I returned home and that was the end of it.

My wife and I and body guard Frank Frost left the courthouse feeling rather elated about the decision and knowing that RadicalPress.com had been victorious once again in retaining its right to carry on publishing until the Charter challenge to Sec. 319(2) was heard. The date for the Charterapplication has been tentatively set for the week of January 25th, 2016.

No Increased Bail Restrictions on Free Speech Warrior Arthur Topham

Frankly, we feared the worst. After Authur Topham’s conviction, November 12, on one of two counts of willfully promoting “hate” against a privileged group, in this case Jews, on his website radicalpress.com, Crown prosecutor Jennifer Johnston immediately sought tighter bail conditions.

It has been the goal of both the highly politicized “hate squad” and the Crown to shut down Mr. Topham’s website. Indeed, his initial bail conditions forbad him to be on the Internet. Eventually, these were appealed and amended.

The Crowns application for more restrictions on Mr. Topham was heard by video conference November 19 and 20.

Judge Bruce Butler turned down Ms Johnston’s demand that Mr. Topham be prevented from doing any more posting on the Internet until his sentencing. [Actually, in a sense, the trial is not yet over because the constitutional challenge is yet to be heard.]

In addition, she wanted a ban on his discussing or speculating why the jurors decided as they did.

“The hearing went extremely well,” Arthur Topham told CAFE. “All Crown got was an order that I remove a photo taken outside the court the first day of the trial as the group shot might have shown a person who would eventually sit on the jury. I had no problem removing it,” he said.

The tentative date for hearing the constitutional challenge is January 25 in Quesnel.

Free Speech Takes a Slam in Arthur Topham Verdict

QUESNEL, BRITISH COLUMBIA, November 12, 2015. An eight woman, four-man jury delivered its mixed verdict at 11:27 this morning in the Arthur Topham free speech trial. M,r. Topham was charged with two counts of “willfully promoting hate” against a privileged minority, specifically Jews, under Canada’s notorious Sec. 319 of the Criminal Code — the hate law. The jury acquitted him on one count but convicted him on the other.

Not so fast, Judge Brian Butler ruled. She was told to file and application which will be heard Thursday November 19 by video hookup, with the judge in Vancouver and defence lawyer Barclay Johnson in Victoria.

The defence had sought to file a constitutional challenge at the start of proceedings. Judge Butler ruled that the challenge must await the end of the trial and a guilty verdict, should such be the case. Barclay Johnson explains that the judge said a constitutional challenge would have to await the establishment of “a factual context” is this case. “This case is very different in context from the Keegstra case in which the Supreme Court, in 1990, while finding that Sec. 319 does violate freedom of speech, did, by a narrow margin, uphold the law. “In Keegstra,” says Mr. Johnson, ” Jim Keegstra was teaching his views to a high school class, a captive audience. In this case, Mr. Topham ran a website. People had to willingly seek it out to read his opinions.”

The constitutional challenge will be filed within the 30-day limit.

Mr. Topham, still in good spirits, pronounced himself a bit disappointed and puzzled by the jury’s decision.”It was so odd to find me guilty of one count but not both. I think the jury thought I wrote a call for the genocide of Jews in the satire Israel Must Perish. it’s not even my book. I took the wording directly from Theodore Kaufman’s book Germany Must Perish” written in 1941. “This would seem to confirm indirectly that Germany Must Perish is a work of hate and written by a Jew.” yet, although then Detective Const. Terry Wilson of the B.C. Hate Squad said he’s been aware of Germany Must Perish for some years, no charges were ever laid.

“Despite the acquittal on one count, this is a sad day for freedom of speech in Canada,” said Paul Fromm, Director of the Canadian Association for Free Expression which has supported Mr. Topham from the beginning in 2007, when he first became the target of Zionist groups trying to shut him down for his criticism of Israel. “After today’s verdict, it becomes just a little more difficult to criticize privileged minorities in Canada. However, the battle to rid this country of this thought control legislation will continue,” he vowed.

Paul Fromm Reports on the First Two Weeks of the Arthur Topham Thought Crimes Trial in Quesnel, B.C.

Welcome! This video is of Paul Fromm, Director of the Canadian Association of Freedom of Expression. Paul just returned after two weeks at the trial of Arthur Topham, held is Quesnel, BC, Canada. He gives his account of the trial experience as he saw it unfold and he describes key testimony such as Gilad Atzmon’s who spoke in Arthur’s defence. [Part of a meeting of the Canadian Association for Free Expression, Vancouver, November 7, 2015)

JURY STILL OUT IN ARTHUR TOPHAM TRIAL

On Monday, the prosecuting attorney Jennifer Johnson delivered her summation to the jury in the Arthur Topham free speech trial. Mr. Topham is charged under Canada’s notorious “hate law” (Sec. 319 of the Criminal Code) for “willfully promoting hatred against a ” privileged group — in this case Jews.